


Up and Down and Back Again

by PlatonicRabbit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depowered Gabriel, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 17:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5057500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlatonicRabbit/pseuds/PlatonicRabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last person the Winchesters were expecting to come crashing back into their lives to rescue them from Amara was Gabriel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up and Down and Back Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miniatures](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miniatures/gifts).



> This might not be updated much until we have more specifics on what the Darkness is all about (and after I finish exams and catch up on other WIPs), but it will be, promise. I have a plan. Also yes, this is named after a Powderfinger song, and there's a reason for that.  
> This will not be spoiler free.

The Winchesters were working an ordinary case for once, just a salt and burn of the sort that almost counted as a leisurely bonding activity by this point. It all went sideways when they turned to leave and Amara was just there, looking for souls to feed on. 

Sam, looking around for the best escape route, found himself wondering distantly if she had been tracking the brothers somehow or if this was just an awful coincidence. He shook it off, and Dean caught his eye and gestured with one hand the direction they should go. Sam didn't acknowledge him, simply bolting, and trusting Dean to keep up.

They ran until they were free of the cemetery, not even sure if she was bothering to follow. She wouldn’t hurt Dean, she had said so and Dean believed her, but Sam was another matter. Amara hungered, and Sam had the brightest soul around for hundreds of miles.

The Impala was in sight when she reappeared, without warning, a few paces away. Dean skidded to a halt, and Sam tried to change direction midstride, but his ankle turned and he fell sprawling to the ground. Amara smiled wide, too-bright eyes and too-sharp teeth flashing in anticipation of her meal. When Dean put himself between his brother and the Darkness incarnate he was simply shoved aside and pinned telepathically to the car. Sam scrambled backwards, away from her, but Amara was faster. Kneeling, she took Sam’s face in her hands.

That was when a wall of solid golden light slammed into Amara from seemingly nowhere, sending her flying.

Sam was left lying in the dirt, stunned. He watched with wide eyes as the light pushed Amara back again and again. There was a familiar noise in the air, one that made Dean clap his hands over his ears and duck away from the fight, the spell that had kept him still broken.

Looking back at the brawl, Sam recalled a brief conversation, something Metatron had pulled on Castiel, more than a year ago. They had all dismissed it as impossible, but suddenly, staring at the thing that had to be an angel fighting Amara away from the Winchesters, Sam knew.

‘Gabriel?’ he whispered.

Later on, Sam would blame himself, and the archangel would try to persuade him not to, for providing the momentary distraction that was all it took for Amara to gain the upper hand.

The next thing he knew, the fight was over, Amara grabbing her attacker and slamming him into the ground with a scream of rage. The light faded into the familiar figure the Winchesters knew as Gabriel's vessel, pinned by his throat to the dirt.

‘You’re out of practice,’ Amara sneered at him.

Gabriel didn’t respond other than to growl at her, struggling to dislodge her hand.

‘But it wouldn’t have mattered. You were never built for more than a walk-on role, Gabriel. Just the Messenger. Where are your brothers, Gabey? No big, strong, Mikey and Luci for you to run wailing to for help this time?’

Sam reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out the small bottle he’d prepared earlier. Dean was inching closer to the struggling pair, angel blade in hand.

Amara leaned over Gabriel, who had given up trying to move her hand in favour of clawing at her eyes futilely.

‘This will be about as unpleasant for you as being shoved into that seal by your family was for me,’ Amara laughed in Gabriel’s face and then she opened her mouth and something bright and blue began to pour out of Gabriel and into her.

Gabriel was screaming, his true voice bleeding through, and Dean dropped the sword in favour of clapping his hands over his ears again. Sam gritted his teeth and flicked his lighter on, touching it to the soaked rag stuffed into the bottle in his other hand.

The bottle exploded on contact with Amara’s back, the Holy Fire molotov working just as well on her as it had on Michael, five years earlier, and she vanished, screaming. Gabriel was left lying on the ground, still, in an awfully human, dead way.

Sam scrambled over to Gabriel's motionless body to check for a pulse, not sure whether he should be hoping to find one. The archangel was pale and cold, but Sam found it, faint and erratic, but still there.

'Sam. C'mon. She’ll be back.’ Dean urged, so Sam lifted Gabriel into his arms and carried him to the Impala.

'We can take him to Cas, he’ll know what to do,’ Dean told him as the engine turned over.

Sam knew that Dean was just guessing, hoping that Cas would have any more idea than them what to do for an injured archangel, but the part of him that always turns to his brother for reassurance was soothed, a little. He checked the rear view mirror almost every minute of the four hour drive back to Lebanon, but Gabriel, lying motionless across the back seat, didn’t stir once.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on my phone, while eating lunch, in a two hour break between classes. It has been edited it since then, don't worry.  
> The only bit I had already in my head before writing this was Amara being susceptible to Holy Fire, because I've been wondering about that since I saw 11.02.
> 
> Come talk to me anytime at platonic-rabbit.tumblr.com


End file.
